In one type of the known apparatus for wrapping, the folding of the foil that is normally closed at one end is effected by gathering right on the pull-down device. The pull-down device has spreadable tensioning corners, whereby preferably in each corner region of the pull-down device there is a respective gathering roller and an opposite counter roller paired together and both rotatable about horizontal axes. After engagement of the pull-down device into the foil hood, the foil hood is tensioned between the counter rollers and the gathering rollers and the gathering rollers are rotated to form the folds. After the fold-formation the tensioning corners are spread apart so that the foil hood is stretched so that it can subsequently be drawn over the one- or multi-part load. To this end the pull-down device is dropped over the one- or multi-part load so that the foil hood engages the top of the one- or multi-part load and is thus stopped. During downward movement the folds that run around the foil hood are progressively pulled off so that then the pull-down device reaches its lowermost position, the entire foil hood has no more folds and the one- or multi-part load and if necessary the underlying pallet are wrapped.
In order to avoid that during stretching of the foil hood it is pulled off the tensioning corners, it is gripped between the gathering wheels and the counter rolls. The disadvantage of this is that the foil hood is only held in a very limited region so that the foil hood can only be sufficiently stretched at its upper region, as otherwise the foil hood would be damaged.
In another type of the known apparatus there is a gathering device separate from the pull-down device. The foil hood is gathered by the gathering device and then is taken over by a separate movable pull-down device. The pull-down device has in the corner regions rod-shaped holding elements directed in the pull-down direction and serving to hold the gathered foil hood taken over from the gathering device. The foil hood is subsequently stretched by spreading of the holding elements and the pull-down device is shifted downward along the one- or multi-part load for pulling-down. The disadvantage of this is that during stretching the foil hood is not solidly gripped so that the foil hood cannot be sufficiently stretched since it would slip partly off the holding elements.